THE STATES FIGHT IN THE LAST DITCH AGAINST OBAMACARE

In today’s American Spectator I discuss the civil disobedience of the states that refuse to set up ObamaCare insurance exchanges.

The ostensible purpose of these exchanges is to provide “marketplaces” where people without health insurance can acquire subsidized coverage. Ironically, the law doesn’t actually require states to set up these bureaucracies. Yet, as Sally Pipes and Hal Scherz note, ‘only state-based exchanges … may distribute credits and subsidies.’

In other words …

If the states refuse to set up exchanges, they cut off the subsidies and tax credits that are the lifeblood of ObamaCare. Moreover, states that decline to set up these enabling bureaucracies will also be protecting their business communities from job-killing federal penalties — even if the federal government comes in and sets up its own exchanges.

So, a lot of states are “just saying no.” Last Friday, 3 more governors announced their refusal to set up ObamaCare exchanges.

Comments 4

Ivy wrote:

Mr. Catron, thank you for an excellent article. I read on Breitbart ( http://tinyurl.com/bk6q2by ) that states opting out of state-run exchanges also exempt those states’ healthcare providers from having to follow HHS dictates regarding health care delivery. What is your opinion on this?

Why isn’t there a bigger push for states to reject outright, not just the exchanges, but the totality of ObamaCare? It would be a gesture of enormous significance, one which the federal government could not ignore and yet would not, I’m convinced, go to civil war over.

I’m no radical, but in my opinion, it has come to this. So I reiterate my question: why is there not a bigger push for it?

I appreciate your opposition to the ACA, but I cannot imagine that we will long allow one blue state to have massive subsidies in their exchanges, plus individual mandates, plus employer penalties, while a neighboring red state has none of the above.

If Illinois had a state exchange and Indiana did not, two men working side by side in East Chicago at the same salary could have wildly different health care costs. The Illinois resident would get a subsidy of up to $10,000 for family coverage, and the Indiana resident would get zero.

Uninsured workers will have a reason to move to Indiana. Corporations with employees in several states, from Fed Ex and Walmart, will have a nightmare of compliance.

The large employers alone will probably force the federal government to have uniform rules.